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Role of the Pakistan Air Force During the Kargil Conflict, by M Kaiser Tufail

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Role of the Pakistan Air Force During the Kargil Conflict, by M Kaiser Tufail Role of the Pakistan Air Force During the Kargil Conflict M Kaiser Tufail Pakistani writings on the Kargil conflict have been few and, those that have come out, largely irrelevant and, in a few cases, clearly sponsored. The role of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has been discussed off and on, but mostly disparagingly, particularly in some uninformed quarters. Here is an airman’s perspective, focussing on the Indian Air Force’s (IAF’s) air operations and the PAF’s position. Operational Planning in the PAF Since an important portion of this write-up pertains to the PAF’s appreciation of the situation and the decision-making loop during the Kargil conflict, we will start with a brief primer on the PAF’s hierarchy and how operational matters are handled at Air Headquarters. The policy-making elements at Air Headquarters consist of four-tiers of staff officers. The topmost tier is made up of the Deputy Chiefs of the Air Staff (DCAS) who are the Principal Staff Officers (PSOs) of their respective branches and are nominally headed by the Vice Chief of the Air Staff (VCAS). They (along with Air Officers Commanding — AOC — the senior representatives from field formations) are members of the Air Board, the PAF’s ‘corporate’ decision-making body which is chaired by the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS). The next tier is made up of Assistant Chiefs of the Air Staff (ACAS) who head various sub-branches and, along with the third-tier directors, assist the PSOs in policy-making; they are not on the Air Board, but can be called for hearings and presentations in the Board Air Commodore M Kaiser Tufail (Retd) is former Commander of a Fighter Squadron of the Pakistan Air Force. CLAWS Journal l Summer 2009 101 M KAISER TUFAIL meetings, as required. A fourth tier of deputy directors does most of the sundry staff work in this policy-making hierarchy. The Operations & Plans branch is the key player in any war, conflict or contingency and is responsible for threat assessment and formulation of a suitable response. During peace-time, war plans are drawn up by the Plans sub-branch and are then war-gamed in operational exercises run by the sister Operations sub-branch. Operational training is accordingly restructured and administered by the latter, based on the lessons of various exercises. This essentially is the gist of the PAF’s operational preparedness methodology, the efficiency of which is amply reflected in its readiness and telling response in various wars and skirmishes in the past. In early 1999, Air Chief Marshal Parvaiz Mehdi Qureshi was at the helm of the PAF. An officer with an imposing personality, he had won the Sword of Honour at the Academy. During the 1971 Indo-Pak War, as a young flight lieutenant, he was on a close support mission in erstwhile East Pakistan when his Sabre was shot down and he was taken prisoner of war (POW). He determinedly resumed his fighter pilot’s career after repatriation and rose to command the PAF’s premier Sargodha base. He was later appointed as the AOC, Southern Air Command, an appointment that affords considerable interaction amongst the three Services, especially in operational exercises. He also held the vitally important post of DCAS (Ops) as well as VCAS before taking over as CAS. The post of DCAS (Ops) was held by the late Air Marshal Zahid Anis. A well- qualified fighter pilot, he had a distinguished career in the PAF, having held some of the most sought-after appointments. These included command of No 38 Tactical Wing (F-16s), the elite Combat Commanders’ School and PAF Base, Sargodha. He was the AOC, Southern Air Command before his appointment as the head of the Operations branch at Air Headquarters. He had done his Air War Course at the PAF’s Air War College, another War Course at the French War College as well as the prestigious course at the Royal College of Defence Studies in the UK. The ACAS (Ops) was Air Cdre Abid Rao, who had recently completed command of PAF Base, Mianwali. He had earlier done his War Course from the French War College. The ACAS (Plans) was the late Air Cdre Saleem Nawaz, a brilliant officer who had made his mark at the Staff College at Bracknell, UK, and during the War Course at the National Defence College, Islamabad. There is no gainsaying the fact that the PAF’s hierarchy was highly qualified and that each one of the players in the Operations branch had the requisite command and staff 102 CLAWS Journal l Summer 2009 ROLE OF THE PAKISTAN AIR FORCE DURING THE KARGIL CONFLICT experience. The two top men had also fought in the 1971 Indo-Pak War, albeit as junior officers. First Rumblings As Director of Operations (in the rank of Gp Capt), my first opportunity to interact with the Army’s Director of Military Operations (DMO) was over a phone call, some time in March 1999. Brig Nadeem Ahmed called with great courtesy and requested some information that he needed for a paper exercise, as he told me. He wanted to know when the PAF had last carried out a deployment at Skardu, how many aircraft were deployed, etc. Rather impressed with the army’s interest in PAF matters, I passed on the requisite details. The next day, Brig Nadeem called again, but this time, his questions were more probing and he wanted some classified information, including fuel storage capacity at Skardu, fighter sortie- generation capacity, radar coverage, etc. He insisted that he was preparing a briefing and wanted to get his facts and figures right, to present to his bosses. We got on a secure line and I passed on the required information. Although he made it sound like routine contingency planning, I sensed that something unusual was brewing. In the event, I thought it prudent to inform the DCAS (Ops). Just to be sure, he checked up with his counterpart, the Director General Military Operations (DGMO), Maj Gen Tauqir Zia, who said the same thing as his DMO and, assured that it was just part of routine contingency planning. After hearing Gp Capt Tariq’s report, Air Marshal Zahid again got in touch with Maj Gen Tauqir and, in a roundabout way, told him that if the army’s ongoing “review of contingency plans” required the PAF to be factored in, an Operations & Plans team would be available for discussion. Nothing was heard from General Headquarters (GHQ) till May 12, when Air Marshal Zahid was told to send a team for a briefing at HQ 10 Corps with regard to the “Kashmir Contingency”. Air Cdre Abid Rao, Air Cdre Saleem Nawaz and myself were directed by the DCAS (Ops) to attend a briefing on the “latest situation in Kashmir” at HQ 10 Corps. We were welcomed by the Chief of Staff (COS) of the corps, who led us to the briefing room. Shortly thereafter, the Corps Commander, Lt Gen Mehmud Ahmad entered, cutting an impressive figure clad in a bush-coat and his trademark camouflage scarf. After exchanging pleasantries, the COS started with the map orientation briefing. Thereafter, Lt Gen Mehmud took over and broke the news that a limited operation had started two days earlier. It was nothing more than a “protective manoeuvre”, he explained, and was meant to foreclose any further mischief by the enemy, who had been a nuisance in the CLAWS Journal l Summer 2009 103 M KAISER TUFAIL Neelam Valley, specially on the road on our side of the Line of Control (LoC). He then elaborated that a few vacant Indian posts had been occupied on peaks across the LoC, overlooking the Dras-Kargil Road. These would, in effect, serve the purpose of airborne observation posts (AOPs) meant for directing artillery fire with accuracy. Artillery firepower would be provided by a couple of field guns that had been helilifted to the heights, piecemeal, and reassembled over the previous few months when the Indians had been off-guard during the winter extremes. The target was a vulnerable section of the Dras-Kargil Road, whose blocking would virtually cut off the crucial life-line which carried the bulk of supplies needed for daily consumption as well as annual winter- stocking in the Leh-Siachen sector. He was very hopeful that this stratagem could choke off the Indians in the vital sector for up to a month, after which the monsoons would prevent vehicular movement (due to landslides) and, also suspend all airlift by the IAF. “Come October, we shall walk in to Siachen – to mop up the dead bodies of hundreds of Indians left hungry, out in the cold,” he succinctly summed up what appeared to be a new dimension to the Siachen dispute. It also seemed to serve, at least for the time being, the secondary aim of alleviating Indian military pressure on Pakistani lines of communications in the Neelam Valley that the corps commander had alluded to in his opening remarks. (The oft-heard strategic aim of “providing a fillip to the insurgency in Kashmir” was never mentioned.) When Lt Gen Mehmud asked for questions at the end of the rather crisp and to-the-point briefing, Air Cdre Saleem Nawaz opened up by inquiring about the type of air support that might be needed for the operation. Lt Gen Mehmud assured us that air support was not envisaged and that his forces could take care of enemy aircraft, if they intervened. “I have Stingers on every peak,” he announced. Air Cdre Saleem tried to point out the limited envelope of these types of missiles and said that nothing stopped the IAF from attacking the posts and artillery pieces from high altitude.
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